Guinness record for chain of plastic bottle caps

Children and faculty at a school in Saudi Arabia broke a Guinness World Record when they arranged 323,103 plastic bottle caps into an 8,984.6-foot chain.

Guinness said the British International School of Jeddah’s chain of bottle caps beat the previous record for longest chain of bottle caps, which was set in the Netherlands with 260,866 bottle caps.

The cap record came at the close of the school’s plastic pollution awareness campaign, which saw students collecting the bottle caps with an eventual goal of taking them to a recycling centre. The school’s record attempt raised money for local children in need of wheelchairs, leg braces and other things.

Scream inside your heart

Footage of two Japanese amusement park executives demonstrating how to “scream inside your heart” to avoid spreading Covid-19 while on a rollercoaster has been a roaring success.

It features the executives, one in a full suit and tie, the other in a shirt and bowtie, sitting stiffbacked and straightfaced in silence. As they plunge downwards, one executive serenely readjusts his hair and his facemask, but both otherwise remain stoically silent.

At the end of the ride, one man lifts his hands off the seat handles, visibly trembling. A black screen follows featuring advice that some social media users have dubbed a slogan for 2020: “Scream inside your heart.”

Japan’s theme parks have banned screaming on roller coasters because it spreads coronavirus. Customers who could keep their screams silent get a discount on photos taken of them on the park’s signature Fujiyama coaster.

“Literally the best description of 2020 I’ve ever read: please scream inside your heart,” one Twitter user wrote.

Glove translates American Sign Language

A team of University of California, Los Angeles scientists have developed a glove that translates American Sign Language into speech in real time.

The team, who published their research in the journal Nature Electronics, said the glove contains sensors in the digits that identify each word, phrase or letter and transmits them wirelessly to a smartphone app that translates them at a rate of one word per second. The device also includes optional sensors attached to a user’s face to register facial expressions used in ASL.

“Our hope is that this opens up an easy way for people who use sign language to communicate directly with non-signers without needing someone else to translate for them,” said lead researcher Jun Chen, an assistant professor of bioengineering.

147-pound paddlefish caught

Wildlife officials in Oklahoma said an angler broke a state record — and possibly a world record — when he reeled in a paddlefish weighing nearly 147 pounds.

The Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation said James Lukehart of Edmond was fishing at Keystone Lake when he reeled in a monster paddlefish that tipped the scales at 146.7 pounds.

The fish was certified as a new state record, beating a 143-pound paddlefish caught by Jeremiah Mefford of Kiefer just over a month earlier; however, the recent catch by Lukehart surpassed this goal and has become the new record.

The largest paddlefish on record weighed in at 198 pounds and was landed by an Iowa spear fisherman in 1916.

Published in Dawn, Young World, July 25th, 2020